In the spring of 2025, an Iranian Christian man named Reza was deported not to his homeland but to Panama — a country where he knew no one, spoke no language of bureaucracy, and held no legal standing. His case is part of a broader American experiment in third-country deportation agreements, policies designed to redirect the weight of asylum claims onto other nations without fully reckoning with what becomes of the human beings transferred. What unfolds in the gap between policy and implementation is not merely administrative failure — it is a question about what obligations a nation carries w
U.S. Deports Iranian Christian to Panama With No Resettlement Plan
One Iranian Christian asylum seeker spent 18 months in legal and administrative limbo after deportation to Panama, facing uncertainty about his status and future.